....ONE in 100.....**

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beloved LEGS

....Even though my mind was made up, even though I had told my trainer my decision.  It was hard.  I would look around at my comrades faces during training (which basically looks like we are all about to die), I would laugh, talk trash, tease and be teased by them and I would know that in a few short months this chapter in my life would be over.  That I would never experience these feelings ever again.  

.....and some days it was easy.  When training was so hard, when I was so tired, when injuries and aches and soreness would plague my abilities for weeks on end.....it was easier to think about how much easier and relaxed my life would be.  How getting on the scale morning noon and night would soon be a undesired piece of my past joyfully left behind......

.....most days it was scary.  I was afraid of leaving the one thing that held me together behind.  What would hold me together now?  Where was my life headed? Was I going to happily settle into being a plain old military wife, who spent her days doting on her husband and trying to get pregnant?  Would that satisfy me?  Would that be enough?  My answer was always NO.  That there had to be a new goal, a new endeavor.  That being ordinary was never going to be enough for me.  

.....I never formally said goodbye to my team mates.  I knew the very last week that I was in training that it was my last week.  SOME of them knew it too, but to keep it together we all just pretended I would be back again next week, or tomorrow for the next session.  

.....the last night I went to training, I almost cried every single second I was there.  I told myself to savor and treasure every single minute, because it was my very last.  When I looked at my team mates I wanted to cry and hug them, I wanted to hold them and tell them how much I loved them.  

.....it was an unspoken understanding.....that boxers don't cry in public.  To reduce myself, to reduce them to tears would be the worst defeat for us all.  So I smiled, and laughed and walked out of the gym saying until next time.  

I was happy.  Happy that I had what I did. Happy that I did what I did.  I was happy that I was able to make a clear, clean decision about when to leave the sport.  I left without any major injuries.  And with a few pretty rough fights, but always leaving the ring on my feet with my head held high.  

My trainer said to me "That only 1 in 100 people have what I have.  That I did more in the sport of boxing in 4 years in Europe that most people don't accomplish in 10.  That I have a fighter spirit, that not every one possesses that, that I should never feel ashamed or sad of leaving for my noble reasons.  And that no one can ever take away what I accomplished.  He said that it hurts his heart that I am leaving the team, because I am the soul of the team, always at training, always happy to attack, always motivating, always ready to fight.  He said that I need to pass that gift on to others in my future.  He said that the team was so lucky that I found them, and that our relationship will continue for our entire lives."

....tears. tears. tears.  

.....another day in the life of an unlikely military wife....**